Monthly Archives: November 2015

How Dry Air Can Wreak Havoc on Your Home This Winter

The Midwest is known for humid summers and dry winters. With winter just around the bend, that dry air is headed back into our lives. Dry air isn’t all bad, but when it’s bone dry for an extended period of time, your body and home will experience some negative side effects. Don’t let dry air cause problems this winter. Getzschman Heating & Cooling explains three reasons why installing a humidifier in your Omaha home will pay off.

Alleviate Health Problems Agitated by Dry Air

Dry air in the winter can aggravate a host of health problems. From allergies to asthma to sinus problems, heating your home in the winter months without resupplying moisture to the air can spell disaster. Dry air is taxing on your nasal passageways which can make them more susceptible to bleeding and infection. Reintroducing moisture in the air while your heater runs can help keep these issues to a minimum. Make sure your bedroom is humidified, as you spend more than a quarter of your day there.

Prevent Damage to Wood in Your Home

A lack of humidity can also cause problems in the woodwork in your home. Just as too much humidity can cause wood in your home to swell and warp, too little humidity can cause the opposite problem. Your wood can shrink and crack. If you have hardwood floors especially, keeping your home at a steady humidity level is very important to keep it looking its best, and to ensure that it has a long lifespan.

Increase Comfort & Energy Efficiency

Dry is is just plain uncomfortable, too. It can cause bloody noses, itchy eyes and nostrils, cracked, itchy skin, static shock and staticky hair. Besides keeping hydrated in the winter months by drinking water, doctors usually recommend keeping humidity levels in your home at a normal level, which is somewhere between 35% and 50%.

A lack of humidity can also affect your heating bills in the winter. Dry air leaves your skin void of moisture, making you feel colder at normal temperatures. This can lead you to misjudge the temperature in your home and turn up the heat, which causes higher energy bills. And in homes, window and door framing is made of wood. When low humidity strikes, those frames can shrink (just like other woodwork in your home – see above -) resulting in gaps that let in cold air from the outside, making your home less energy efficient.

3 Heating Myths Busted

As the thermometer outside drops, the need to crank the heat indoors grows. Everyone wants the comfort of the heat, but without the high energy bills that accompany that luxury. Many homeowners rely on heating myths to try to cut the costs associated with turning up their furnace, but many of these are just that – myths. Getzschman Heating & Cooling busts a few heating myths that you should be aware of this season.

Myth: Crank the Thermostat Up to Heat Your Home More Quickly

This trick really isn’t a trick at all. Cranking the heat up to try and warm your home more quickly doesn’t actually work. Heating systems deliver air at the same constant rate no matter how high the heat is set. So, your home will still take just as long to heat up, but your furnace will have to work much harder to reach such a high temperature. In the end this method will actually end up costing you more on your monthly energy bills.

Myth: Ceiling Fans Are Only for Summer

Ceiling fans aren’t just for cooling. They can actually make your home more energy efficient by distributing the warm air in your home better. All you have to do to make this work is switch the fan to make it spin clockwise. This will force warm air that accumulates near the top of the room down towards the living quarters. Your home will feel warmer without increasing your furnace’s output.

Myth: Save Money by Turning off Your furnace Completely When You’re Gone all Day

While this strategy may seem like a sound tactic, it’s actually best to keep your furnace running all day, and for two reasons. First of all, if your furnace has been off all day and you kick it on when you come home, it will have to work really hard to raise the temperature in your home back to a normal setting, thereby eating up a lot of energy and increasing your energy bills. Instead, use a programmable thermostat to set different programs throughout the day to accommodate your schedule. Set your thermostat 10-12 degrees cooler than you normally have it when you are gone all day. Secondly, turning off your furnace all day when the temperatures start dropping really low can put your water pipes at risk of bursting.

Keep your furnace running efficiently all heating season with a little help from the Omaha area furnace experts. The G-Force team has you covered when it comes to furnace tune-ups, furnace replacement, etc. Call us today at 402-554-1110.